What will my blog be about? It will be about me, living my life, exploring my interests, finding myself and what it is to be me. Do you ever want your blog to become one of those famous blogs? If mine were to be one I would think it is because it morphed into this widely read online magazine about what it is to be a woman in today's standards. Fashion, cooking, baking, career pursuits, organizing, sportsr, exercising. I really wish there was a magazine like that. Guys get interesting magazines like GQ and Esquire, which encompasses things I believe to be what a man should be. Well not just a man, but a gentleman, a sports guy, a guy's guy, a ladies guy, a fashionable man that is not considered METRO. Sure it's stereotyped and not a complete fit, but I think these magazines have a broad view for men and its a good guideline or give good articles. For females, it is too complicated. If we say that a female should like to bake or cook, feminists would have a big deal about it, saying these are archaic gender roles put upon us by a male-dominated society. If we say a female should be strong and opinionated, then some women would say its not an attractive feature women should be aiming for and it would chase away potential suitors or its not the right lifestyle for a mother. I hate most "women's interests" magazines today, like Glamor or Cosmopolitan. It's always the same cookie cutter articles, a celebrity cover, generalized beauty and fashion advice, some sex and love advice, a exercise or healthy recipe, and the horoscope. Ok. I love horoscopes. But everything else, it's like I've heard it all before. Nothing is inspiring or different. Snore. I just want something more and real.
But yes! Back to the original post. One of my most favorite things to do is to bake. Ever since my besties friends got me a KitchenAid Stand Mixer, I've been baking at least once every other week. I will be definitely sharing things that I make on my blog. I generally like to bake a lot of different things. Whatever I try and am craving for, I search websites and tweak recipes or combine them or look at user comments to try to make delicious things. Here are some of my recent baked goods, which luckily haven't needed much tweaking:
This is
Berry Parfait from Joy of Baking website. Pretty simple, it uses a mixture of heavy whipped cream and mascarpone cheese for the cream. It's the first time I've ever used mascarpone cheese, though I've eaten it plenty of times in tiramisu. Alone, it tastes like whipped cream without added sugar, but thicker. I think the thicker cream was quite good in this parfait since there is no cake and it could stand up against the sweetened berry. It would probably be good in between layered cakes as well. If I was to make a trifle though, I would just make whipped cream though, to save money and I don't think it would be too necessary. I did not do any changes from the recipe given.
Next up is
Gateau Sirop Muffins from one of my favorite food blogs, Chocolate and Zucchini. I was looking for recipes that used golden syrup, since my friends Albert and Victoria gave me a few bottles, and I happened upon this while cruising the webpage's archives. I love these muffins, they turn out so delicious and SUPER moist. I made them using my mini-muffin plan since I think eating whole muffins are just too much, but I ended up always eating at least two mini muffins at a time. The only change from the recipe given was that it took a few minutes more to bake. Next time, I might add some whole wheat flour. I don't think the taste will change too much.
Lastly, I made some banana bread yesterday. My friend Tracy and her boyfriend Matt stayed over at my place so I wanted them to have something for them to snack on if I was to be away or if they woke up earlier than me and was hungry. I had some ripe bananas I had bought as a 'before running' snack, but since it rained this week I didn't eat them. There's so many Banana bread recipes out there and it was hard to choose from. I wanted one with the least ingredients and I couldn't decide if I wanted to add chocolate chips to them or not. My friend Fiona makes an awesome chocolate chip banana bread, and I tend to avoid making things my friends can make for me that is already guaranteed good (: but I was still tempted to make some with chocolate chips because I love chocolate. However, since I felt banana bread was a classic, I thought of looking up a recipe from my idol baker (and idol almost everything else homely), Martha Stewart, and it didn't use chocolate chips. I used her
Banana Bread recipe from her website and it turned out awesome. Only change was using lowfat sour cream. Next time, I may put in half whole wheat flour and use applesauce instead of butter. We'll see if I can make it healthier. Why? Since my guests were super busy and ate out the whole time, they only had a piece and I've eaten practically half the whole loaf. Definitely bringing this into work tomorrow or I'm going to finish it off!
Hope this made you a little bit hungry!
